How Trump’s FBI Purge Saved Lindsey Graham and James Clyburn From a Bribery Investigation

On March 3, 2020, Sen. Lindsey Graham strolled into a personal dining-room at Charlie Palmer Steak in Washington, D.C. Graham’s time was pricey. He was consulting with 2 executives and a lobbyist from a Hawaiian marine defense professional called Navatek. And he had actually needed them to devote to $40,000 in project contributions for a 45-minute conference.

Navatek’s CEO, Martin Kao, was positive that was all the time he required.

“Shoot all he needs to truly do is come by and state ‘yes,'” Kao composed to a Navatek lobbyist and a fellow executive the day in the past, in an e-mail seen by ProPublica. “That ought to just take a minute and he’s on his method. We do not require to pretend we offer a shit about each other.”

At the supper, Graham consumed little and yapped. Kao got the “yes” he was hoping for: Graham concurred to guide a $10 million federal government agreement Navatek’s method in his native South Carolina, Kao later on stated to the FBI. In exchange, he stated, Graham asked Kao to promise an overall of $100,000 to his reelection project.

In early 2025, the FBI opened a sweeping examination into bribery on Capitol Hill with Graham’s steakhouse supper at the. Kao admitted to federal representatives that his organization design included paying off public authorities in exchange for federal government agreements, which the research study Navatek was supplying to the federal government was typically useless.

The plan included a few of the most effective figures in Congress, he stated– in both celebrations. In South Carolina, Kao informed representatives, Navatek made a project cash-for-contracts offer not just with Graham, however likewise with the state’s leading Democrat, Rep. James Clyburn, and another prominent Republican, Rep. Joe Wilson.

Kao informed representatives that Graham in specific left little space for uncertainty: “This is just how much I desire, and just how much I am going to provide you,” Kao kept in mind Graham stating, according to notes one representative took throughout their debrief in late 2024.

Kao’s admissions would make up a huge criminal bribery plan if they might be shown in court– a difficulty, offered current Supreme Court judgments that have actually made it harder to win corruption cases. Kao himself presented another obstacle. He was dealing with jail for scams and project financing infractions and was talking to the FBI in the hopes of minimizing his sentence.

The FBI representatives who took Kao’s confession– 2 knowledgeable anti-corruption private investigators– might see that much of it lined up with a chest of records they had actually taken from Navatek. They advanced. The FBI took the official action of calling 2 previous Navatek executives who had actually dealt with Kao as topics of a bribery examination. The firm did not designate Graham, Clyburn and Wilson that method, however the representatives were actively examining their interactions with Kao. The representatives showed to their superiors that the legislators might end up being topics in the future, according to records seen by ProPublica.

The information of this examination have actually not formerly been reported.

President Donald Trump went back to the White House and nearly right away gutted the specialized FBI and Department of Justice groups devoted to handling public corruption– an act of vengeance for having actually formerly examined him. The 2 skilled representatives on the case were swept up in the purge, and the profession district attorney helping them give up after Trump appointees prohibited the DOJ’s anti-corruption area from submitting any brand-new casesToday, there is nobody delegated check out Kao’s explosive claims, as the Trump administration has actually deserted any pretense of prosecuting public corruption. The case is dead.

ProPublica has actually discovered the examination by evaluating countless pages of legal files, internal business e-mails, proof the FBI utilized to veterinarian Kao’s claims and lots of interviews with individuals who saw how Navatek ran, consisting of an eyewitness to Graham and Kao’s secret steakhouse supper.

This story belongs to a series based upon our reporting. Last month, ProPublica reported that the FBI had actually penetrated the conduct of Maine Sen. Susan Collins, who guided millions in federal government financing towards Navatek while Kao offered her unlawful project contributions. Collins rejected misbehavior and dismissed Kao as a “founded guilty phony.”

Kao is certainly the only individual included to serve jail time. He pleaded guilty to making prohibited project contributions and a loan scams plan in 2022. In 2025, he was sentenced to 87 months in jail.

Graham passed away at 71 previously this year. His sibling, Darline Graham, who was selected to fill his seat, maintained the majority of his senior personnel, consisting of those who handled Navatek. She even used up a few of his committee tasks, consisting of appropriations. Darline Graham is running for a complete term in workplace this November.

Clyburn, 86, is among the most effective Democrats in Washington. He is commonly credited with tipping the scales for Joe Biden throughout the 2020 Democratic governmental main. Wilson stays prominent on nationwide defense costs from his senior perch on the Armed Services Committee.

” Whatever a donor might believe or state, a contribution would never ever trigger Congressman Clyburn to increase his assistance for the donor’s demand, “Jami LaRue, Clyburn’s interactions director, composed in reaction to in-depth concerns. “The Congressman has actually constantly made every effort to help the University of South Carolina and all of the institution of higher learnings in his district when hired to advance their essential objectives. The criminal activities and lies of a sent to prison scammer will not trigger the Congressman to fluctuate in his assistance for these great organizations.”

David Snider, Wilson’s interactions director, did not resolve a breakdown of concerns sent out by ProPublica. “Congressman Wilson does and has actually constantly complied with project contribution guidelines stated by the Federal Election Commission,” Snider stated in an e-mail.

In an emailed declaration, Taylor Reidy, who was Lindsey Graham’s interactions director and now holds the exact same post for his sibling, composed that “any claims of quid-pro-quo habits or misdeed by the late Senator Lindsey Graham or his personnel are just incorrect.” She stated the allegations were the “ravings of a founded guilty felon” which her workplace was never ever called by the FBI about the matter. After Kao’s arrest, they disgorged his contributions, she included.

The 2 executives who were topics of the FBI examination, Duke Hartman and Joshua Knight, were never ever charged. Hartman, the other executive at the supper conference with Graham, is now the CEO of a brand-new marine research study business called Integer Technologies that he co-founded with Knight after Kao’s arrest. Integer was just recently acknowledged as one of the fastest-growing federal government specialists in the nation. It likewise ended up being the supreme recipient of the Graham supper conference, getting the agreement Graham apparently accepted help with that night.

Hartman and Knight did not react to comprehensive ask for remark.

corruption at its finest,” Kao composed to ProPublica from federal detention in South Dakota, before cutting off contact. “But I am the just one decaying in jail.”

Little Company, Big Ambitions

Kao’s supper with Graham belonged to his grand strategy to make Navatek a significant defense specialist.

He had actually ended up being the CEO at an unsure minute in the business’s history. Established in Hawaii in the 1970s, the business initially flourished on a close relationship with the state’s effective senior senator, Daniel Inouye. When Kao presumed ownership in 2019, it had actually been numerous years given that Inouye had actually passed away, and Navatek required a brand-new client in Washington.

Sometimes, Kao barely appeared the individual to pull this off. He had actually started as the business’s CFO and was honestly withdrawn in its innovation. He informed overblown lies about his individual life. Previous workers stated he regaled them with tales of offering papers for members of the Bloods and Crips street gangs as a youth. In a deposition, Kao later on confessed that wasn’t real.

What he did not have in engineering chops he made up with aspiration. As soon as, Kao held a business city center utilizing a map of the U.S. dotted with future Navatek workplaces as his background, a previous staff member remembered. “He would speak about how we’re a $10 million business, and in the next 3 years, we’re going to be a billion-dollar business,” stated a previous engineer. “He was an outright megalomaniac.”

Kao hatched a strategy to broaden Navatek’s existence throughout the nation, making brand-new good friends in Congress along the method. He courted political leaders utilizing something he called “the technique,” as ProPublica detailed in September.

Navatek would open a workplace in the state or district of an effective member of Congress and partner with a regional university to cook up a proposition for federally moneyed research study. Assisted by a well-connected lobbyist and the shine of trustworthiness from its association with the university, Navatek would approach the member for federal research study financing.

Kao informed the FBI he would strike handle little, in person conferences with the members or their relied on personnel. Navatek– through executives, relative and lobbyists– would make generous project contributions. In exchange, the member would include comprehensive language to the defense budget plan to money the business’s work.

That legal language would not call the business. It would explain particular work that Navatek was currently preparing to do behind the scenes, making it the only sensible option for the ultimate federal government agreement. The legislators’ personnel would likewise backchannel with the Navy after the costs was passed to make certain contracting workplaces understood to direct the cash to Navatek, e-mails seen by ProPublica reveal– although the agreements remained in theory competitive.

Kao “wished to construct a business as huge as he might as quick as he could,” a previous executive later on affirmed in court. For a while, he prospered. Under Kao, Navatek went from needing to “reconstruct,” as the executive put it, to winning $40.7 million in brand-new federal government agreements in 2020.

Hartman, the other Navatek executive who went to supper with Graham, supervised of preserving friendly incorporate Congress while tracking the countless dollars the business had actually asked for in research study funds. He kept mindful tabs on the business’s development utilizing lots of color-coded spreadsheets. “If anybody understands the impropriety of business design, it’s him,” Kao informed the FBI, describing Hartman.

Later on, these spreadsheets offered the FBI an in-depth image of which congressional workplaces worked closest with Navatek. In the tables committed to South Carolina, Navatek signified Graham as a “essential advocate.”

The business mainly targeted legislators from smaller sized states who rested on appropriations committees, like Collins, Kao described to the FBI, since they wielded big power over the budget plan while having less “constituents to ‘feed.'”

The senior senator from South Carolina was another prime target. “You can get access to Lindsey Graham,” Eric Schiff, a previous Navatek executive, stated in an interview.

Kao, Hartman and other Navatek executives approached the workplaces of Graham, Clyburn and Wilson– all effective members of the South Carolina delegation– in the start of 2019. The business had actually hired the University of South Carolina for a joint research study task, and together they asked the legislators to discover $9.5 million to money the work. If it was successful, Navatek prepared to ask Congress to re-up the financing for 2 more years along with green-light 2 more tasks, internal business records reveal, for an overall of as much as $90 million in South Carolina alone.

Navatek had “no individuals” capable of doing the research study it was pitching, stated a previous executive with direct understanding of the work.

Its $9.5 million “power and energy” proposition guaranteed innovative research study on how to disperse the restricted power on board a ship in between numerous energy-intense systems, like radars, lasers and rail weapons. Graham’s workplace later on boasted that the work would cause brand-new innovation that would “guarantee that our fleet is prepared for the battles of the future.”

In truth, Navatek’s preliminary research study “appeared like a college senior citizen’s graduation task,” the executive stated. “Something you go receive from RadioShack.” Graham’s workplace referred concerns about the quality of the work to the Navy and the university. The Office of Naval Research, which granted the agreement, did not react to concerns.

For Congress, that do not have of knowledge wasn’t an issue. Throughout 2019, the FBI kept in mind, as the occurring year’s spending plan came together, both Graham’s and Clyburn’s workplaces took actions to make certain it consisted of Navatek’s financing.

In May 2019, Willie Lyles III, Clyburn’s legal director, signaled Navatek that your home Appropriations Committee would back brand-new financing for a “modular and scalable integrated power and thermal system efficient in powering a directed energy weapon system of 100 or more kilowatts,” according to an e-mail flagged by the FBI. 3 days later on, that precise language appeared in the House Appropriations Committee reportLyles did not respond to an ask for remark.

Congress passed the last costs including $9.5 million for Navatek’s family pet job on Dec. 19, 2019.

At that point, Kao and other Navatek executives had actually not made any contributions to Clyburn, Wilson or perhaps Graham.

That would alter within days of Congress passing the spending plan, when an executive promised $750 to Wilson’s project at a fundraising event held at Bullfeathers, a Capitol Hill watering hole for lobbyists and Hill staffers, e-mails reveal. In the following weeks, Kao and his lobbyist provided Wilson’s project $3,500.

And larger checks impended. Kao began 2020 by making strategies to invest $300,000 at a variety of political charity events, according to text submitted in court and a current deposition. Navatek’s lobbyists at that time were looking for personal conferences with Graham, Wilson and Clyburn, where Kao prepared to request for considerably more federal financing. Kao ultimately consulted with all 3, and each requested for $100,000, he informed the FBI.

Throughout that very same duration, Kao and Hartman satisfied a leading fundraising event for Collins at a Corner Bakery in Washington, D.C. As ProPublica reported, that conference led Kao to contribute $150,000 to the pro-Collins extremely PAC. Kao informed the FBI that the cash was a kickback in exchange for the senator’s assistance for more Navatek financing. The head of the extremely PAC and Collins have actually rejected Kao’s variation of occasions.

Kao informed the FBI it was not uncommon for contributions to come after the favor: “We ended up being creative in our own right and determined how to hang the carrot,” he composed in a memo seen by ProPublica, “up until we saw some guarantee that the Ask remained in the spending plan.”

To protect a conference with Graham, Kao worked with Michael Tongour, a veteran South Carolina lobbyist who was old law school buddies with the senator and household good friends with Clyburn and Wilson. Graham was up for reelection versus a well-funded opposition, Jaime Harrison, and had a congested fundraising schedule, stated Tongour, however they ultimately discovered a time.

“The Graham charity event states that it you wish to schedule a date for Senator Graham to go to a personal supper, the project wishes to get $40,000 in contributions,” Tongour composed to Kao, Hartman and lobbyist Andy Winer, in an undated e-mail seen by ProPublica. Winer, whom Kao referred to as Navatek’s primary lobbyist, chimed in to state that Graham might remain just 45 minutes, and Kao responded that all they required to hear was “yes.”

“These conversations are extremely frank and unusually not uncomfortable,” Kao informed the FBI. “I expect as soon as we got that far, everybody understands the offer.”

A Dinner With Graham

Graham appeared late to his March 3, 2020, supper with Kao, Hartman and Tongour. A charity event working for Graham appeared very first and accepted an envelope from Kao consisting of checks constructed out to Graham’s project, Kao stated. Kao did not understand the fundraising event’s name; in an FBI debrief, he merely described the individual as the “cash guy.” After that individual left, Graham got in.

Graham, Kao remembered to the FBI, was “extremely abrupt” and “straight to the point”: He asked just how much Navatek desired, to which they stated $10 million a year for 3 years. Graham asked Kao to promise $100,000 in contributions in exchange for his assistance, Kao informed the FBI.

Navatek was handling numerous propositions in South Carolina worth around $10 million, and it’s unclear which one Kao was explaining.

Congress had actually simply authorized the $9.5 million for the power and energy task, however Navatek still required the Navy to award the cash in the kind of an agreement. The business was likewise ready to ask Congress to money the very same job for a 2nd year at $10.5 million. Navatek was preparing to pitch a brand-new research study proposition, at $10 million, to study the transportation of products inland from ships utilizing self-governing cars. It was another location where Navatek had “no previous efficiency,” the previous executive stated.

The exact same week of the steakhouse supper, Graham’s workplace was working behind the scenes with Navatek and the University of South Carolina to ensure the Navy sent out the very first $9.5 million to the best business.

A day before the supper, an authorities with the Office of Naval Research emailed Graham’s workplace to inquire about the cash, which “the Senator might have an interest in.” Craig Abele, Graham’s nationwide security consultant, called her a couple of days later on to validate that Graham’s workplace had actually planned the cash to be granted to the Navatek collaboration, e-mails reveal. “Spoke to ONR today,” Abele composed March 6. “Should be set.”

The business got the agreement, which it divided with the university, in July 2020.

Abele ended up being Graham’s deputy chief of personnel and still holds the position for Darline. He did not respond to an e-mail asking for remark. A Graham representative validated to ProPublica that their workplace had actually undoubtedly included the $9.5 million to the spending plan at the demand of the university and Navatek. The representative stated the research study was supported by the Navy and declined the concept that Graham was encouraged by project money.

Graham’s representative stated needing a fundraising minimum for a supper was typical practice.

The checks Kao turned over at the supper amounted to about half of the $40,000 he had actually accepted raise for the supper, according to Tongour. The rest can be found in May, project records reveal.

“My understanding at the time was that the contributions related to the occasion were legal political contributions,” Winer stated. “I never ever encouraged Kao to make a political contribution in exchange for main action. I never ever took part in, saw or knew any prohibited political contribution.”

After Kao’s 2020 indictment, the University of South Carolina broke off the collaboration. University authorities were not knowledgeable about any political contributions from Navatek,” Jeff Stensland, a university representative, composed in an e-mail. “Our sole goal in partnering with them was to broaden our research study business.”

One week after the supper, on March 10, a University of South Carolina lobbyist sent out composed demands to Graham’s workplace for $20.5 million in appropriations: $10.5 million to continue Navatek’s power and energy research study and $10 million for its brand-new self-governing automobile research study.

Tongour validated lots of aspects of Kao’s story. In a current interview with ProPublica and subsequent e-mails, he kept in mind Kao offering the envelope filled with checks to Graham’s charity event and even concurred that Graham kept the conference brief. “I do not remember that he remained more than thirty minutes,” Tongour stated in an e-mail. “Certainly not for appetisers, meal, and dessert.”

He rejected Kao’s most considerable claim: that Graham and Navatek struck a specific, possibly prohibited offer for agreements.

“I would bear in mind that permanently,” Tongour stated. Graham supported Navatek’s demands, he stated, due to the fact that they benefited the state. “If I had actually seen that type of quid professional quo, I would have given up previously.” Tongour fired Navatek as a customer later on that year, instantly after Kao’s arrest.

Navatek thought about Graham its chief customer in South Carolina, internal records reveal, simply as it saw Collins in Maine. The business likewise desired assistance in the House.

For that, Navatek turned to Clyburn, a member of Democratic celebration management and among the most effective figures in Congress. Representatives discovered Navatek e-mails setting a conference with Clyburn for early March. The objective, Kao stated, was to ensure that your home draft of the spending plan “mirrored” whatever Graham placed in the Senate variation.

Over a meal, Clyburn asked Kao just how much he was contributing to Graham and after that requested the exact same quantity, $100,000, Kao informed the FBI.

The FBI tallied $20,000 in contributions that Kao and his member of the family made to Clyburn a couple of days after their set up conference. A month later on, Hartman scheduled a $10,000 present to Clyburn’s university, South Carolina State University, according to an e-mail seen by ProPublica. Hartman noted it was “Congressman Clyburn’s preferred school.”

The representative for Clyburn verified the supper happened however did not react to concerns about what was gone over.

Kao and Hartman struck a comparable deal with Wilson, Kao informed the FBI, at a personal lunch he protected by contributing to his project. The FBI pulled records of $3,500 in contributions Kao and Tongour made in late 2019 and early 2020.

Wilson has a prominent function on the House Armed Services Committee, which licenses defense costs. Wilson was “extremely clear and understood what the ask was,” Kao informed the FBI. He desired nevertheless much Clyburn was getting in project contributions in exchange for his assistance, Kao stated.

Tongour rejected this. “There was no ‘pay to play’ with Joe Wilson or his personnel either,” he composed in an e-mail, including that he contributed due to the fact that Wilson “is a pal and I wish to see him re-elected.”

Kao declared to the FBI that he spent for meals with all 3 political leaders, however project financing records appear to reveal the legislators’ projects selected up the check.

By August 2020, Hartman had actually gotten word that Graham’s and Wilson’s committees would each assistance part of the business’s demands, internal business records reveal. Clyburn was not on crucial committees while he was a celebration leader. In among his myriad spreadsheets, Hartman forecasted that the last spending plan might consist of as much as $15.5 countless the $20.5 million the business had actually lobbied for.

Kao informed representatives he was preparing to make more substantial contributions to Graham, Clyburn and Wilson by the end of the year. Rather, on Sept. 30, 2020, he was jailed.

Kao reviewed his time at Navatek in a deposition taken last month inside a federal jail. The business’s creator has actually taken legal action against Kao, stating his stewardship defrauded Navatek of millions.

“It’s absolutely nothing more than federal government contracting done through pacifying senior appropriation members for agreements,” Kao stated. “The entire thing is a grand lie.”

An Arrest, a Lifeboat

Kao’s arrest plunged Navatek into chaos. Federal district attorneys charged him with defrauding a federal loan program; not long after, he was likewise charged with making prohibited contributions to the Collins project and incredibly PAC. Lobbyists, universities and congressional workplaces suddenly cut off contact. “Don’t call us,” one congressional workplace informed an executive, he later on affirmed.

The Collins project stated it disgorged Kao’s contribution. The senator, dealing with a tight reelection quote, has actually had to field concerns following the ProPublica report about her assistance for Navatek and why the very PAC supporting her accepted the $150,000 contribution from the shell business in the very first location.

As Navatek sank, Hartman started developing himself a lifeboat. In 2021, he and Knight began a brand-new military research study business headquartered in South Carolina called Integer Technologies. Integer’s very first job was one that Navatek had actually brokered with Graham.

Hartman didn’t deal with any criminal charges at the time and left Navatek mainly unharmed. He would later on settle a civil claim brought by his previous company, which competed he contributed in Kao’s project financing and loan scams plans, for $425,000. He confessed no misdeed.

In September 2024, FBI representatives flew to Hawaii for what would be their last interview with Kao. They pushed him for information about what took place in South Carolina, quizzing him on his supper with Graham and a 2nd in-person conference he stated he had with Clyburn. Representatives desired Kao to assist them discover more records that would support his account and asked him to point them towards lobbyists in D.C. who he stated assisted in the pay-for-play plan.

As the year ended, FBI representative Michelle Ball felt she had sufficient product to progress. The FBI had actually “discovered a prolonged history” of a federal government professional making contributions “in exchange for federal government agreements,” she composed in a Dec. 9, 2024, memo seen by ProPublica.

In federal corruption probes, representatives typically start by concentrating on lower-level targets with an objective of working their method approximately more popular figures. Ball called Hartman; his company partner, Knight; and their business, Integer, as the official topics of the probe, as they prepared to possibly provide subpoenas and collect more proof. They had Graham, Clyburn and Wilson in their sights. Ball dedicated whole areas of the memo to detailing the legislators’ conduct. And she flagged the case as a delicate matter that may link political leaders in the future.

In the summertime of 2024, Kate Fifield, a district attorney in the Justice Department’s anti-corruption area, had actually been appointed to sign up with the case. Fifield was finishing up a prominent prosecution of a retired Navy admiral who traded a federal government agreement for a future task. Turning her attention to Kao, she and the FBI representatives weighed their alternatives. They thought about getting top-level approval to release undercover representatives. Showing an exchange of money for favors frequently needs the type of inconvertible proof that undercover recordings can offer.

Before the examination took flight, the brand-new Trump administration started to destroy the Justice Department. The president’s handpicked leaders purchased district attorneys to drop a corruption case versus New York Mayor Eric Adams, setting off a wave of resignations in the general public Integrity Section where Fifield worked, and withdrawed the area’s authority to bring brand-new cases.

Trump’s FBI director, Kash Patel, started to purge the anti-corruption system in the Washington D.C., field workplace, where lots of representatives had actually examined Trump.

Ball was fired in October 2025. Kevin Gounaud, another representative who had actually been dealing with her on the examination, was pressed out in early 2026. Through their attorney, the representatives decreased to comment.

The corruption examination, simply introduced, all of a sudden went dark.

The White House referred ProPublica’s concerns to the FBI and DOJ.

The Department of Justice didn’t react to in-depth concerns about the examination.

“Under President Trump, the Justice Department is rooting out the weaponization, corruption, and institutional rot that ran widespread under Joe Biden’s two-tiered system of justice,” DOJ representative Audrey Cook stated.

Kao’s claims are “half baked” and “deceptive,” FBI representative Ben Williamson stated. “Additionally, as we have actually stated consistently, workers are just eliminated at this FBI if they have actually been discovered to have actually acted unethically, weakened the objective, or participated in weaponization of police.”

The event was a brand-new research study collaboration in Louisiana. Hartman thanked his lobbyist for making it take place.